Having reliable Internet connectivity has recently become essential for organizations of all types and sizes. Whether it is needed for communication purposes between employees of an organization, for conducting electronic commerce, or for a variety of other purposes, many organizations now rely on Internet connectivity every day in order to effectively operate. Organizations without reliable Internet access can quickly lose competitive advantage, revenue, future sales, and the ability to communicate both internally and externally. Lack of reliable Internet connection can also negatively impact productivity as more and more daily tasks of personnel are related to using the Internet.
Primary Internet connections routinely fail for a variety of reasons. Power outages, hardware and software failures, and failures in one or more of the elements of physical connectivity which enable Internet connections to remain active can all cause Internet connections to fail.
Many primary Internet connections fail due to a wide variety of failures in hardware, software, or the physical connections that comprise the elements of the physical connectivity required to keep these connections active. Router failures, severed underground or other cables and/or connections, hardware and/or software problems in the Point of Presence (“POP”) of Internet Service Providers (“ISP”) or Local Access Providers (“LAP”), and other failures associated with physical connectivity all can cause primary Internet connection failures.
Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus which provides an improved backup Internet access service that automatically carries Internet traffic when the primary connection to the Internet fails.